Cloudy1′s Blog
Just another WordPress.com weblogCareer Box – Good or Bad??
After yesterday’s discussion on the purpose of Career-box and whether it was useful to anyone I thought I would put my thoughts out there.
I completely understand the logic behind creating Career-box to ensure that all students across Scotland receive the same guidance at the same stages required throughout their school education, however Career-box could easily be presented by any of the school guidance teachers by simply following the worksheet.
Career Scotland career advisers need to be allowed to( and often do) put their own personality onto the topic being covered, surely they have this ability or they would not be employed! The Career Adviser should know more about the individual school and student circumstance and adapt to their requirements to offer an engaging topic to those involved.
Is it more that the Government wants to know that the Careers Service is carrying out it’s duties effectively and that it feeds into their “hot topics” and therefore Careers Scotland use Career-box as the best format of showing this ?
What would we have instead of careersbox? If this tool never existed what would Careers advisers be using today? Even though we say that few current advisers actually stick stringently to the careerbox agendas do they not actually stick to the topics and only because they have grown in confidence in their own abilities that they adapt the format?
I wonder if we surveyed SDS Career Advisers today and asked them “what topics are worthwhile discussing in todays schools and how would you present them?” – how different would their answers be from the current career-box activities?
Having experienced career planning and education in an HE institution it proved that it seems to be only in the school environment that students are treated as clones, regardless of geographical location or needs. In Unis the guidance practitioners need to really understand the needs of the students within each subject – not just the university study year. For instance some areas such as philosphy don’t feel they can acknowlegde the need for career awareness to their fellow students as it would go against what they are actually studying and relating to during their years of study! If you were not aware or prepared to acknowledge this the input would be fruitless!